Five wars
The world wars, the Hundred Years' War, the First Crusade, and the peace that ended the religious ones.
5 questions. Pick an answer to see the explanation. Share your result at the end.
Whose assassination triggered the start of World War I?
Archduke Franz Ferdinand, heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne, was shot in Sarajevo on 28 June 1914 by the Bosnian Serb nationalist Gavrilo Princip. Austria-Hungary blamed Serbia, and the alliance system turned the Balkan crisis into a continental war within five weeks. The Tsar, the Kaiser, and President Wilson all survived 1914 unharmed (although Nicholas II was eventually executed in 1918, after the Russian Revolution).
What event is conventionally regarded as the start of World War II in Europe?
Germany invaded Poland on 1 September 1939; France and the United Kingdom declared war on Germany two days later. Pearl Harbor (December 1941) brought the United States in; Operation Barbarossa (June 1941) opened the Eastern Front; Munich (1938) was the failed appeasement agreement that preceded the war. The Asian theatre had begun earlier, with Japan's invasion of China in July 1937.
How long did the Hundred Years' War actually last?
The conventional dates are 1337 (Edward III's claim to the French throne) to 1453 (the French recovery of Bordeaux). That's 116 years, with multiple long periods of de facto truce. The label *Guerre de Cent Ans* is a 19th-century French historiographical convenience for what contemporaries experienced as a series of distinct wars.
Who called the First Crusade, and when?
Pope Urban II preached the First Crusade at the Council of Clermont on 27 November 1095, offering a plenary indulgence to knights who would travel east to recover the Holy Land. The expedition reached Jerusalem and captured it on 15 July 1099. Richard the Lionheart led the Third Crusade (1189–1192); Alexios I Komnenos's request for aid against the Seljuks was the immediate trigger but he did not call the Crusade himself; Francis of Assisi joined the Fifth Crusade as a peace envoy.
Which 1648 treaty ended the Thirty Years' War and established the foundations of the modern European state system?
The Peace of Westphalia (24 October 1648) consisted of two linked treaties signed at Münster and Osnabrück. It ended the Thirty Years' War, recognized Dutch and Swiss independence, and established the principle of sovereign territorial states — the 'Westphalian system' that still names the modern international order. Versailles is 1919 (WWI); Tordesillas is 1494 (Spanish-Portuguese New World division); Augsburg is 1555 (the earlier and inadequate Lutheran-Catholic settlement).